NATO: Turkey’s Bombshell Sweden Demand Rocks NATO Summit Before it Even Begins.

Alliance leaders gathering in Vilnius on the eve of Tuesday’s summit were hoping a meeting between Erdogan and Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson would see the Turkish leader lift his veto on Sweden’s membership.

But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared in no mood to compromise, declaring that he would only back Sweden’s NATO candidacy if European Union members – most of whom are also NATO allies – agree to revive Turkey’s negotiations to join the EU.

The demand, never before made in public, threatened to open a new rift between Ankara and its Western partners, even as NATO and the EU tackle Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the continent’s worst security crisis since World War II.

But: NATO chief says Turkey agrees to send Sweden’s NATO accession protocol to Parliament swiftly.

My initial thought was, “Somebody backed down in a hurry and it probably wasn’t the EU because they almost never do anything quickly.”

But then this: The Turkey-NATO Deal On Sweden Is A Disaster.

President Biden’s team, working assiduously in the background, may want to share Stoltenberg’s supposed triumph.

They should not.

What NATO officials bill as a diplomatic masterstroke is actually a disaster in the making.

Put aside Turkey’s humiliation of Sweden and the erosion, at Erdogan’s behest, of free speech and democracy in that country. And put aside the hypocrisy of treating Kurds in Sweden as terrorists when Islamic State sympathizers in Turkey not only roam free but also populate Erdogan’s administration and Turkey’s intelligence service.

Rather, the problem appears to be a new quid pro quo.

Not only does Turkey now expect the lifting of most defense-related sanctions, but a Turkish official also said that Turkey now expects

Europe to fast track its long moribund European Union accession process.

“A disaster in the making” is an apt description of Biden’s overall foreign policy.